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But Judge Stuart Rafferty QC, sentencing him, said he and Pham knew perfectly well why he came to this country, paying the £1,500.

And the only way he could repay that debt was to work in a drug production enterprise, he added.

"That is what you were doing when you were caught by police," he told him over a video link from HMP Nottingham.

"I am satisfied that it wasn't by chance that you were driving down the motorway with a valuable ongoing product. Given your previous conviction for committing precisely the same offence in this country, I conclude that acting as a courier was simply part of your duties".

Judge Stuart Rafferty

He sentenced Pham, 37, of Tongue Moore Road, Bolton, to two-and-a-half years for being concerned in the production of cannabis on January 26.

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His role in the enterprise was limited, said his lawyer Emma Coverley.

"He knows he is going to be deported back to Vietnam at the end of the sentence," she said.

Half his sentence will be served before he is deported, with the judge finishing with: "I express the hope, not with much optimism, that you will not come back again. If it is true, that you care for your wife and your children, spending months or years locked up in British prisons is of no help to them at all.

"Understand this, if you come back to this country again and you are caught doing this again, the minimum sentence that you can expect next time will be at least five years and may well be more. By that time, if you get out, then your children will no doubt be teenagers and you will not have been a father to them in the least".